Book I: The Frog That Wished to Be as Big as the Ox
The tenant of a bog,An envious little frog,Not bigger than an egg,A stately bullock spies,And, smitten with his size,Attempts to be as big.With earnestness and pains,She stretches, swells, and strains,And says, 'Sis Frog, look here! see me!Is this enough?' 'No, no.''Well, then, is this?' 'Poh! poh!Enough! you don't begin to be.'And thus the reptile sits,Enlarging till she splits.The world is full of folksOf just such wisdom;--The lordly dome provokesThe cit to build his dome;And, really, there is no tellingHow much great men set little ones a swelling.
Words in this poem
- envious a.
- Malignant; mischievous; spiteful. [OF. envios, F. envieux, fr. L. invidiosus, fr. invidia envy. See Envy, and cf. Invidious.]
- bigger a.
- , compar. of Big.
- bullock n.
- A young bull, or any male of the ox kind. [AS. bulluc a young bull. See Bull.]
- folks n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book I: The Frog That Wished to Be as Big as the Ox is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Fables of La Fontaine, Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, the Elizur Wright translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jean de La Fontaine, Book I: The Frog That Wished to Be as Big as the Ox, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/1-3.html, id L28213.
Form and metre
Book I: The Frog That Wished to Be as Big as the Ox is 20 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA-BB-CCDEEDFFGHGHII bogA · frogA · egg · spiesB · sizeB · big · painsC · strainsC · meD · noE · pohE · beD · sitsF · splitsF · folksG · wisdomH · provokesG · domeH · tellingI · swellingI
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The tenant of a bog, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| An envious little frog, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Not bigger than an egg, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| A stately bullock spies, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| And, smitten with his size, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Attempts to be as big. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| With earnestness and pains, | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| She stretches, swells, and strains, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And says, 'Sis Frog, look here! see me! | 8 | ········ |
| Is this enough?' 'No, no.' | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| 'Well, then, is this?' 'Poh! poh! | 6 | ······ |
| Enough! you don't begin to be.' | 8 | ˘/··˘/·· |
| And thus the reptile sits, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Enlarging till she splits. | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| The world is full of folks | 6 | ······ |
| Of just such wisdom;-- | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The lordly dome provokes | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| The cit to build his dome; | 6 | ······ |
| And, really, there is no telling | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| How much great men set little ones a swelling. | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.